Should You take Anti-Cholesterol Drugs as a Preventive Medicine?

There’s no question on how cholesterol-lowering medication has helped prevent strokes and heart failures on people with high cholesterol level. However, the recent FDA approval for drugs like AstraZeneca to be marketed over-the-counter as a preventive medicine worries a lot of medical practitioners.

Unknown to most people, the JUPITER study which backs up FDA’s claim that these drugs are pretty harmless even to healthy subjects was only conducted on men over 50 and women over 60 years of age. If you’re around 24 to 35 and if you have a healthy cholesterol count of 35 or 45, you may actually experience side effects from taking this drug.

Medical practitioners like Dr. Mark Hlatsky of Stanford mention the risk of contracting Type 2 Diabetes. While no sound research can back up this claim yet, doctors say it’s good to be a bit skeptical. Despite FDA’s approval, anti-cholesterol medication should only be induced if you’re actually prone to heart failures and strokes. Ideally, you should only take them if you’re around 50 to 60 years old.

Dr. Neica Goldberg of New York explained to Fox News that the JUPITER study revolved around 50- to 60-year old subjects taking Crestor, a cholesterol lowering drug. Men and women in that age group showed a lower susceptibility to heart attacks and diseases, and it also lowered the occurrence of C-reactive protein.

This protein shows up when there’s an inflammation. While FDA’s decision is grounded on sound scientific research, people should educate themselves about the details of the study first to avoid any unnecessary health complications.